Is there a method in PL/SQL to convert/encode text to XML compliant text?

Question

I have a colleague who needs to convert text from a PL/SQL method into XML compliant text, as he is constructing a excel spreadsheet by updating a text template.

Is there a method in PL/SQL to convert/encode text to XML compliant text?

Answer 1

Well, if you just want to convert XML characters, you'll want to do something like...

  outgoing_text := DBMS_XMLGEN.CONVERT(incoming_text)

Where outgoing_text and incoming_text are both VARCHAR2 or CLOB.

You can specify a second argument, but it defaults to DBMS_XMLGEN.ENTITY_ENCODE... it can also decode XML entities by passing DBMS_XMLGEN.ENTITY_DECODE as a second argument.

Answer 2

Later versions of oracle have a built in XML package for manipulating XML data.
For example, is this the sort of thing your colleague wants to do?:

SELECT DBMS_XMLGEN.getXML('SELECT * FROM emp') FROM dual;